The Guardian's Honor

“You’re right. Let’s not give him time to think up an argument. I’ll wait and call my grandmother afterward. I’d like to have good news for her.”

“This means a lot to her.” She responded to the message behind the words.

“It’s all she’s talked about for months.” He frowned slightly. “She thought he’d died in the war. She wanted to set up a memorial to him. Once we realized he might still be alive, there was just no containing her. If I hadn’t taken on finding him, I think she’d have set out herself.” Now his lips curved in a smile that blended affection and exasperation.

It was an appealing smile. She considered herself hardened to the effects of masculine appeal, but there was something about Adam Bodine that seemed to get under her guard.

She gave herself a mental shake. There was no room in her life for thoughts like that.

“I’ll just get us some sweet tea. You make yourself comfortable.” She escaped to the kitchen.

She’d no sooner put ice in the tea than she heard voices in the living room. Her nerves twitched. If Grandpa was back already…

But that wasn’t her grandfather talking to Adam. It was Jamie’s piping little voice. Snatching the tray, she hurried back into the room.

Adam sat on the faded sofa, the half-finished wooden boat in his hand. Jamie leaned against his knee.

“My grandfather used to whittle things for me, too. Sea creatures, mostly…dolphins and whales and sea horses. I still have them on a shelf in my bedroom.”

“I wish I could see them.” Jamie’s voice was wistful. “Is your house a long, long way?”

“Not too far,” Adam began, but he cut the words off when he saw her.

She set the tray down, keeping her smile intact with an effort. “Jamie, it’s time for your snack. Come along to the kitchen now.”

“But, Mama, I want to talk to Mr. Adam.”

“Not now.” She put her hand on his shoulder, resisting the urge to pick him up and carry him. Let him do as much as he can for himself. The doctor’s words rang in her head, but it was hard, so hard, to watch him struggle.

She settled Jamie at the kitchen table with milk and a banana and then returned to her guest.

Adam greeted her with a question in his eyes. “Do you always keep your son away from people, or is it just me?”

She fidgeted with her glass, disconcerted by his blunt attack. Well, she could be blunt, too. “Jamie’s had enough of people staring at him and pitying him.”

“I wasn’t…” He stopped, and she sensed an emotion she didn’t understand working behind the pleasant face he presented to the world.

“Sorry,” he said finally. “I guess I overreacted the first time I saw him. I promise, it won’t happen again. He has nothing to fear from me.”

That was an odd way of expressing it, and again she had the sense of something behind the words.

But there was no time to speculate on it now. The sound of a car had her stomach twisting in knots again. That would be Emily Warden, bringing Grandpa back from his lunch.

She looked at Adam and saw the same apprehension in his eyes that must be in hers. Ready or not, it was time to do this.

Grandpa’s face was already red with anger when he came through the door, no doubt because he’d seen the strange car sitting in front. She steeled herself for the inevitable explosion.

It didn’t come. Somehow, Grandpa managed to hold his voice down to a muted roar. “What is he doing here?”

He indicated Adam with a jerk of his head, focusing his glare on her.

“He’s here because I invited him.” Her voice didn’t wobble, thank goodness, as she drew the battle line.

This was actually the first time she’d challenged her grandfather on anything since she’d moved back, but she had to do this. It was the only door out of this trap they were in.

“I told you before. He’s nothing to do with us.”

“Grandpa, that’s not the truth, and you know it. I found this.” She held out the watch. It lay on her palm, and her grandfather looked at it as if it were a snake about to strike.

“Where did you get that?”

“In Grandma’s trunk.” A smile trembled on her lips at the memory of her grandmother. “She never did like to throw anything away. Remember?”

“’Course I remember.” His eyes were suspiciously bright. “Woman saved everything. Never listened to me a day in her life. Feisty.”

“She had to be, living with you all those years.” It was the sort of thing she used to be able to say to him, gone in the aftermath of the quarrel, but it came to her lips now. “Look at the watch, Grandpa. ‘To E.B. from Mama and Daddy. 1942.’”

He was shaking his head when Adam held out his own watch.

“I have one, too. The family still gives them as an eighteenth-birthday gift.”

Grandpa stared at it for a moment. Then he stumped over to his rocking chair and sat down heavily, the red color slowly fading out of his face, leaving it pale and set.

“All right, all right. Since you’re bound and determined to have it out, I was born Edward Bodine. But I haven’t been that man in years, and I don’t reckon to start now.”

The capitulation left her weak in the knees, and she sat down on the sofa, not sure what would come next.

Grandpa stared at Adam, as if seeking some resemblance. “Your grandfather was my little brother. He still alive?”

“No, sir. He died ten years ago of a stroke. Miz Callie’s still going strong, though. He married Callie McFarland. You remember her?”

“Little Callie.” Her grandfather seemed to look back through the years, and for the first time she saw some softening in his expression. “’Course I remember her. Lived near us on the island, always in and out of the house. So she and Richmond got hitched.”

Adam came cautiously to take a seat next to her, apparently feeling he wasn’t going to get thrown out at the moment. “Richmond and Callie had three boys. My father is the oldest.”

“And you’d be his oldest boy, I s’pose.”

Adam blinked. “How did you know that?”

“Oldest sons have that look of responsibility on them.” His face tightened a little. “I did. You in the service?”

“Coast Guard. Lieutenant. I’m running a patrol boat out of Coast Guard Base Charleston right now.”

So she’d been right about the military look of him. Despite that easygoing smile, he was probably one who could take command when he needed to.

“Family tradition.” Grandpa’s lips twisted. “Your great-granddaddy would be right proud of you. He never was of me. Called me a coward, said I was a disgrace to the family name. So I figured I didn’t need to use it any more.”

The bitterness that laced his voice appalled her. How could he still carry so much anger toward someone who was long dead?